The Obsidian Blade
by Claytonimor
Summary: The Emperor's own Space Marines have never been known for their aptitude for stealth, and those of the Obsidian Guard are no different. Rather, they pride themselves in the direct and sudden application of just the right amount of force to just the right location for the best results.
1. Chapter 1

Hello! How's y'all doin'? Have you missed me? I have. God I'm wonderful. In case you haven't noticed, my self-esteem has returned! For how long one might ask? I don't care! I'm happy and I'ma write while it lasts. So here it is, my story about my customized Space Marine Chapter from the Deathwatch tabletop RPG, the Obsidian Guard. Btw, so very sorry am I for the whole deadline thing I did...though honestly if you believed I would get it out on time then you severely overestimate my abilities.

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. I will cannot own anything. Owning something lacks any true meaning. Nihilism lacks any intrinsic value.**

* * *

The trenches weren't quiet, or even dark, at night. Screams, explosions, and the _snap-crack_ of las-fire always filled the air while star-shells and the flashes of super-heavy artillery and basilisk batteries illuminated no-man's land. In the sky above, stars-lights would flick across the sky and impact others. Together they would flash and then wink out of existence, the only reminder of the clashes of immense firepower between the Servants of Man and the Ruinous Powers happening in the bleak void above the hell-blasted planet.

The planet was called Arcturus III by scribes in the Administratum, but the original founders had called it Grecia. It used to be a mere feudal world, only the highest king on the planet knew the truth of the stars. Its people had been dogmatic in their faith and cunning in their wars. That all ended three decades ago.

A man calling himself Ungraaf the Kind appeared in a small town in the forested lowlands 106 kilometers south-southeast of the planetary capital of Atria Primus. Within the week, the several-hundred strong village was entirely consumed by the Plague of Undeath. Within three months, half of the planet was consumed. At that point, the forces of the Emperor and its eternal foe had met and clashed in the void high above the planet, the massive battlefleets deploying untold numbers of soldiers and cultists to the surface. Years passed, the tide of war ebbed and flowed, the vast forests and plentiful fields of the planet burned and its population was raped and exploited for more fodder to be wasted on the bastions of both sides.

Finally, after it had became apparent that tonnes and tonnes of men and munitions could not win the planet on its own, a plea was sent out for the nearest of the Emperor's greatest servants to come and join in the battle. And so, on 4345,672.M41, the Obsidian Guard, a Chapter of the Emperor's own Space Marines, arrived on the Strike Cruiser _Unending Solace _and descended to the planet below.

* * *

That was but a week ago by this planet's time. Now, in the flickering shadows and overwhelming noise of the night, several indistinct shapes and ripples in the air flicked from one piece of cover to the next, slowly but surely crossing the no-man's-land. The leader of the ten, Brother-Sergeant Isaak Stadtholm flicked his eyes across the landscape, letting his armor mark any hostiles. So far there was nothing that indicated anyone realizing their presence from either side of the trenches. Such luck could not last, however, and it was entirely possi...THERE! His HUD pinged three warm bodies and the 2-meter armored behemoth silently and swiftly brought his bolter to bear. His finger tightened on the trigger...wait. No, they were friendlies. Isaak waved up Battle-Brothers Heinrich Ostburn and Josiah Mostof and Brother-Apothecary Gregor Yorich to scout out the pings.

The three Astartes flitted across the broken terrain before coming to a stop next to the three warm bodies. Yorich's indicator rune blinked red twice and orange once, two of them were dead and the third wouldn't live through treatment. Isaak blinked his own rune twice in acknowledgement before waving the rest of the squad forward.

Every night since they had arrived on this Emperor-forsaken hellhole, the 6th squad of the 3rd company had stealthily crossed the no-mans-land and reeked havoc in, amongst and behind the enemy lines. This night, they were to finally fire-bomb the enemy's command building, thirteen kilometers behind the enemy lines. The traitors had been sending commands to the rest of their rebellion from what remained of the former Planetary Lord's castle and the Astartes had only been able to gain a glimpse of it at a distance the previous times they had infiltrated the enemy lines.

Slowly, with pressure waves from the massive ordinance bombardment to the sector west of them washing over them, Isaak and his squad ghosted past the dead guardsmen.

* * *

The bloated forms of the Plague Lord's followers patrolled the trench in front of the squad. Killing them with bolt and fire would be extremely fulfilling but...problematic if discovered. Isaak blinked his indicator rune three times, they would wait, they would likely be detected if they moved now and besides...Battle-Brother Fredric Kelding's rune blinked once, a question, before his armored form shifted itself towards the front, his Stalker-pattern bolter remaining fixed on the line ahead as he turned to the Brother-Sergeant and began flashing hand signals, the size of his ceramite-covered hands doing nothing to slow the dexterous symbols.

'Brother-Sergeant, I could plant my krak grenades on the nearest enemy bunker to the east and draw off the patrols.'

Isaak glanced sharply at Fredric and began to flash symbols back to him, 'You overstep yourself, brother. Do not be too eager to join the eternal war at the Emperor's side.'

Fredric insisted, 'But Brother-Sergeant! The longer we wait, the better a chance there is of them detecting us!'

Isaak would have sighed but suppressed the urge, instead opting to simply point to the west and show the over-eager Marine why he had chosen for them to wait. The guns had gone silent.

Swiftly, Fredric realized what that meant and signed an apology before moving back to his position. As soon as he finished moving back, they heard it. A low rumble, the mixed noise of hundreds of thousands of soldiers screaming for blood fully supported by full armor battalions. Soon enough, a different sound filled the air. A low buzz accompanied a high-pitched whine as ammunition of every type filled the land to the left of the squad. Soon enough, the cultists in front of the trench had become distracted by the clash to the west, they were only slightly better than the Khornite cultists they had ambushed two days ago, and began praying to their plague-father in the hopes of the battle spilling over to their trench.

Seeing this, the Space Marines moved forward, vaulting over the trench and landing on top of the pus-filled heretics. The squad quickly dismembered the bloated traitors with economical stabs and slashes from their combat knives.

Glancing over his shoulder towards the rest of his squad, Isaak ripped his combat knife out of a traitors head with a sickening squelch and sheathed the blade. He then turned fully to the rest of them and waved them on, the distraction the attack would bring would only last so long, after all.

Once more leaving the dead behind, the squad ghosted further into the trench system.

* * *

The only real obstacle the Marines faced after piercing the lines (and murdering a few mortar teams along the way and pilfering their explosives), was after they had cleared the trench system all-together.

They had been making good time along what remained of the mighty river the Tiberius Maxus when Brother Genetieve Horatio stopped them when he spotted a vast dust cloud moving opposite them on the riverbed.

Swiftly, the ten marines scattered into the cracks and craters that littered the landscape and let the shadows consume them.

Shortly there-after, the ground began to shake again. The soot-filled air was soon flooded with a scent most foul, the air-scrubbers within the Marines sacred armor did nothing to stop it from pervading the senses and dulling the Marines' minds. It reeked of rotting skin and burst bowels, of death and blood and other things foul. And soon enough, the auto-senses of the Marine's' armor picked up a noise to accompany the blasted scent.

* * *

Isaak was the first to hear it through the noise of his own retching. A slow song, sung by a thousand voices, all as one. The voices that carried along the chant (for what else could it be) were slow, quiet even, and yet, as time passed, the voices, with all their hacking and coughing and gurgling and bubbling, slowly reached a crescendo. The Brother-Sergeant then saw them.

"_**Buboes, phlegm, blood and guts!**"_

They were terrible to look upon, even from the distance that Isaak stood. Rolling waves of carrion flies obscured most of the column, but here and there a shambling, shuffling shape could be seen.

"_**Boils, bogeys, rot and pus!**"_

His visor auto-adjusted his sight and zoomed in on the monsters, no, the _daemons_, and Isaak took them in, in all their decaying glory. They were Nurgle's foot-soldiers, and they marched to war.

"_**Blisters, fevers, weeping sores!**"_

They were rotting, wasted creatures. What little of their skin that remained could be barely seen beneath the pus and blood that constantly oozed and spurted from their gaping wounds, boils, and sores. Intestines and bones pokes out from the holes in their flesh and dragged along the ground. Pus wept continuously from their single bloodshot eye and from their forehead protruded a single horn, the Mark of Nurgle's decay. And in their left hand each carried a blade made more of flesh and rot than of true metal.

"**_From your wounds the fester pours!_**"

The Plaguebearers of Nurgle had joined the battle.

* * *

Isaak was caught be the sight of the daemons, his blood boiled. Despite his training, the training of all in the Obsidian Guard, the followers of Nurgle held a special place in the hearts of all of his Chapter's Marines. While he could hold in his hate at seeing the human followers of the Plague Lord, their fellow daemons incited a rage in him that could be purported as Heretical had its subject been anything other than the Ruinous Powers. After all, it had been Nurgle that had so recently struck down a full company of the Chapter, cutting down the Chapter to a mere 300 marines when partnered with the warp incident that had robbed the Obsidian Guard of most of their veteran marines and their Chapter master.

As such, it comes to no surprise that not just Isaak, but the entirety of his squad (when they, too came from hiding) opened blessed fire upon the daemons.

* * *

Even in their rage, the ten marines stuck true to discipline. Each gun opened up in a staggered pattern, a second between each gun joining in, so that when one gun lost its ammunition nine others could still be firing constantly.

Swiftly, the horde turned its attention to the mildly-entrenched Astartes and the Plague Lord's servants began to charge. Ichor and other pestilences would explode outward here and there as the Blessed Bolter rounds made their effects known to the daemons, but still the horde neared the Marines. Had any of the ten been of the right mind, they would have not opened fire on the daemons and instead let them pass, but rage clouds the mind and dulls the faith.

Dozens more of the daemons fell as they entered into grenade range and the Super-soldiers lobbed frag and krak grenades into the mob.

Finally, when the daemons reached 20 or so meters from the Marines, Isaak clipped his bolter and yelled out, "Reap them, my Brothers!"

The others followed his movements and holstered their firearms before reaching onto their backs and pulling out the weapons that were crossed, proudly, under the skulls on their Chapter standard.

Simultaneously, ten power-fields lit up.

The Emperor's reapers called for death and charged.

* * *

**Yaaaaay! It's finally over! the first chapter in the fourth story of a series of very slowly updated tales written by yours truly! Plus I got the first chapter of IGWL re-written! Whoopee! Well, now onto to the Star Wars/Whatever the hell else it was crossover, that'll probably be up before 2085 swings around, but what-evs. Please R & R!**


	2. For Fuck's Sake, Claytonimor!

Sorry everyone, this isn't a chapter, this is me covering my ass from all the fire I am about to receive.

That's right people, this is an excuse as to why I haven't been writing. Normally I would give you some damn sob story and shit and make you all forgive me, but fuck that. The truth of the matter is that I broke my laptop. Basically, I dropped it and the screen broke. I said, "Shit" and waited until yesterday to order a new laptop...which I received today. While I have pretty much lost all data on the previous laptop, I won't be dropping any of my stories. What I am going to be doing is following what I had set up for the rest of my stories. That means finishing rewriting If God's Were Lazy and then moving on a rotation pattern to Emperor Deliver us, then Apathy, Weakness and Doubt, then The Obsidian Blade, and then back to A New Age, A Dark Age.

That is all.


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